Electronic Arts (EA) recently started laying off staff in its Montreal game studio, but said the studio isn't closing.

EA laid off an unknown number of employees from the Montreal studio, and declined to share how many workers it has there total. EA also didn't say which teams within the studio were affected.

"EA is sharpening its focus to provide games for new platforms and mobile. In some cases, this involves reducing team sizes as we evolve into a more efficient organization," EA said in a statement.

On March 30, EA CEO John Riccitiello stepped down from his position after blaming himself for missed financial targets. EA's board of directors has appointed executive Larry Probst to fill in as executive chairman until the company finds a permanent CEO. Probst was CEO of the company from 1991-2007 when Riccitiello stepped in.

Just yesterday, EA was awarded the "Worst Company in America" award by Consumer Union's The Consumerist site. EA won the most votes by a 78 percent margin, mainly because of its problems with "SimCity" last month. Servers had crashed at international launch, and gamers grew frustrated with EA's use of DRM and servers altogether.

I worked in QA for a number of years, and to be fair to EA (although they probably don't deserve it), laying off QA when you have nothing to be tested has zero effect on quality.

Even if that studio has a current project that needs testing, the 'main' QA at EA (not located at any development house), and all the other QA branches at other development houses are used; they just don't forego QA entirely.

The only QA you keep are managers and leads; regular QA personell are a dime a dozen, and easy to refill positions when needed. It is an entry level job with literally thousands of applicants.

I dislike EA, but acting like they are shooting themselves in the foot for laying off 100 QA out of their stable of 1,000 total QA is just silly.